| The relationships among social interdependence (cooperative experiences, cooperative, competitive, and individualistic attitudes), social dominance, children's bullying, victimization, and prosocial behaviors were explored using a multi-informant (self, teacher, peer nomination, principal) method with 217 elementary school children from the 3rd to 5th grades.;The first purpose of the study is to examine the hypothesized model of social interdependence, children's bullying, victimization, and prosocial behaviors. Path analysis using LISREL was conducted, including the following variables: cooperative learning experiences, social interdependence attitudes (cooperative, competitive, and individualistic), children's bullying, victimization, and prosocial behavior scores. The results showed that individual paths in the model are partially confirmed by the data; additionally, the goodness of fit test supports the overall fit of the model.;The second purpose of the study is to examine how dominant (those who have "high status" in the classroom) children's bullying, victimization, and prosocial behaviors can be mediated by their social interdependence attitudes. Dominant children who have "high power" in the classroom are supposed to behave differently, based on their social interdependence tendencies.;For this second purpose of the study, a cluster analysis for dominant children was conducted using social interdependence attitude scores, children's self-reports of bullying, prosocial scores, teacher reports of bullying scores and prosocial behaviors. The results showed that there were three clusters of dominant children: cooperative prosocial, competitive aggressive and individualistic children. Cooperative prosocial children and competitive aggressive children with "high power" were compared on the basis of their cooperative experiences, level of teacher's use of cooperative learning as rated by the school principal, teacher ratings of dominance, and perceived leadership by peers. The results showed that, compared with competitive aggressive children, cooperative prosocial children tended to have teachers who used more cooperative learning in their classroom. Competitive aggressive children received higher teacher ratings of dominance than did cooperative prosocial children. There was no significant difference between cooperative experiences and perceived leadership by peers.;The implications of increasing cooperative attitudes through cooperative experiences for children, especially for bullies and victims, were discussed. Furthermore, the implications of competition from social interdependence theory and social dominance theory were also discussed. |
